What would be really revolutionary is a way to get dye to bond permanently to the plastic so it stays put instead of diffusing over time. Maybe I should make that my life's work, finding the magic formula/process.

We are not like those other golfers. We throw our clubs and keep our balls where they belong. -Ol' Bob

ChUcK wrote:This is what plotters are for, really. Dyeing lots of the same thing.

Agreed. This seems to be the least time and cost intensive process. If you are cutting the same image 500 times then the cost per mask is probably going to be really low.

ChUcK wrote:What would be really revolutionary is a way to get dye to bond permanently to the plastic so it stays put instead of diffusing over time. Maybe I should make that my life's work, finding the magic formula/process.

ChUcK wrote:This is what plotters are for, really. Dyeing lots of the same thing.

What would be really revolutionary is a way to get dye to bond permanently to the plastic so it stays put instead of diffusing over time. Maybe I should make that my life's work, finding the magic formula/process.

I always understood that the dyes used by the disc companies don't really fade or blur over time (though I might be wrong), so maybe the answer is just using some industrial dye that's meant specifically for this type of plastic, not Ritt which isn't really plastic dye to begin with. Of course this could easily get really expensive unless you're selling huge amount of discs and difficult since the exact makeup of the plastic isn't known. Anyone tried Dr. Dyes dyes? Do they fade/blur and how much?

Parks wrote:If the posts on this forum are any indication, the PD is like a Teebird with sunshine coming out of its butthole so hard that it flies faster.

I almost forgot about Dr. Dye's dyes...I'll have to try those at some point.

The problem I have with a plotter is I'm still throwing away an ungodly amount of used vinyl...I'm hoping for something where I can take a stencil of some sort, lay it on the disc, paint on some elmer's glue or masking liquid and dip it like that once it's dry. I'll still have waste from the glue/masking, but nowhere near as much as if I used vinyl...

I'm pretty sure I always said that I don't want to be throwing out tons of vinyl or tracking down the 3 recyclers in my state that would accept loose vinyl from a consumer - none of whom mention if the adhesive would interfere with their recycling process.

Masking liquid and elmer's glue produce plastic (or semi-plastic) waste as well, but far less of it, and if I can use elmer's glue it's non-toxic and bio-degradable.

Besides...if I use an airbrush, I already have one...my only cost would be the liquid, which IS cheaper than sign vinyl

Skabob, if you want to avoid wasting vinyl, then stop dyeing discs. Realistically speaking, if you have a 30" plotter you can waste *less* vinyl.

30" vinyl is actually 28.5" (in cahoots with those 2x4 assholes, no doubt) but if you plan your job to cut the vinyl in squares measuring 9.5"x9.5", you can get three discs worth of vinyl out of one 9.5" strip. It doesn't leave room for error, and with larger diameter mids it barely covers them, but I haven't had any problems and I've been hand-cutting my 30" roll this way from day one.

For even less vinyl wasting, look for a different way to apply the dye. If you can paint the dye on as a viscous liquid that will stay put it removes the necessity for the "vinyl boat" in which the disc braves the RIT ocean. You can mask off just a small area for a small design, like 3"x3" total, without wasting an entire 9.5x9.5 piece.

Jubuttib, your assumption that factory dyes don't bleed over time is erroneous. They bleed just as much as any other dye. It's easier to notice on an crazy intricate dye from AcidBath than on a splatter flydye. When a splatter dye bleeds through the plastic it just becomes a slightly more spread-out splatter and still looks like it was meant to be that way. When a dye of the Incredible Hulk bleeds, the fault is easier to spot by a few orders of magnitude because the Hulk ain't supposed to be blurry and the eye notices with little difficulty.

We are not like those other golfers. We throw our clubs and keep our balls where they belong. -Ol' Bob

ChUcK wrote:Jubuttib, your assumption that factory dyes don't bleed over time is erroneous. They bleed just as much as any other dye. It's easier to notice on an crazy intricate dye from AcidBath than on a splatter flydye. When a splatter dye bleeds through the plastic it just becomes a slightly more spread-out splatter and still looks like it was meant to be that way. When a dye of the Incredible Hulk bleeds, the fault is easier to spot by a few orders of magnitude because the Hulk ain't supposed to be blurry and the eye notices with little difficulty.

Thanks, good to know.

SkaBob wrote:Where have I mentioned cost as my inspiration for doing this?

I'm pretty sure I always said that I don't want to be throwing out tons of vinyl or tracking down the 3 recyclers in my state that would accept loose vinyl from a consumer - none of whom mention if the adhesive would interfere with their recycling process.

Masking liquid and elmer's glue produce plastic (or semi-plastic) waste as well, but far less of it, and if I can use elmer's glue it's non-toxic and bio-degradable.

Besides...if I use an airbrush, I already have one...my only cost would be the liquid, which IS cheaper than sign vinyl

I was thinking it'd end up being something like that. Hard to know how elmer's glue will come out of an airbrush though

My only concern in making stencils/screens for that is how to deal with the shape of the disc to keep the picture from looking fish-eyed. I figure at worst, I can use an illustrator filter or something and print them out pre-fish-eyed for when I make the stencil.

If you were going as far as a silkscreening setup, why would you need to spray glue on the disc? I thought screenprinting performed the 'mask task' for you, so you could just airbrush dye onto the disc.

I suppose you would need to do this for a nice dark black dip, because I was never able to get a good black with the airbrush.

We are not like those other golfers. We throw our clubs and keep our balls where they belong. -Ol' Bob